General Electric (GE) is investing heavily in coal power after writing off the industry for years as federal regulators looked to close power plants in their fight against global warming.
GE is building new coal plants in India, China and Southeast Asia as demand for power grows quickly in those regions. GE also plans on refurbishing U.S. coal plants being threatened by cheap natural gas and federal regulations.
GE will likely be able to acquire existing coal plants on the cheap due to the industry’s collapse. The company believes that new internet networking and improved computer hardware will make American coal plants much more efficient and adjust more rapidly to changing prices.
“We expect a quite-stable if not increasing amount of installations in coal,” Andreas Lusch, the chief executive of GE’s power-systems business, told The Wall Street Journal. “[India is] as hungry for energy as we were probably 40 or 50 years ago, and do not have this mind-set to say we want everything to be renewable. First they want power.”
GE has heavily invested in green energy, but is now pouring money into coal again after Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations and cheap natural gas caused the industry to collapse. The world’s largest coal company, Peabody Energy, was forced to declare bankruptcy in April, Arch Coal filed bankruptcy in January and coal companies like Alliance Coal announced have mass layoffs.
GE will likely be able to acquire existing coal plants on the cheap due to the industry’s collapse. The company believes that new internet networking and improved computer hardware will make American coal plants much more efficient and adjust more rapidly to changing prices
GE generated $21.49 billion in revenue from its power business last year.
American coal use has fallen by 29 percent since 2007, causing dire economic consequences in the industry according to a report by the pro-industry Institute for Energy Research (IER).
Jeffrey Immelt, GE’s chairman and CEO, was appointed to the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board in 2009 and served as Obama’s jobs czar. He was also one of the largest personal donors to the President’s political campaigns.
GE was one of Obama’s largest corporate donors donating $532,000 to the Obama campaign in 2008 alone, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The company received a total of $25 million in stimulus funds, $20 billion in stimulus-generated government contracts, and $139 billion in bailouts. The company has also received numerous valuable wind energy contracts from the government.
Recently however, Immelt has criticized Obama for allowing government regulations to slow down economic growth.
The systematic deconstruction of the coal industry has created very real economic hardship for the”coal country” of Appalachia, which has been economically devastated and offers very few job options for the now unemployed workers. Coal mines lost 7,500 jobs last year alone, according to federal data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In just the last three years, mine employment has fallen by 75,000, according to IER. These were high wage jobs too, as a typical miner earns $83,700 a year—a salary that cannot be replicated in other fields without extensive education.
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